Mention veteran indie band Sonic Youth and words like “no wave,” “avant garde,” “noise rock,” “experimental” and “inaccessible” come quickly to mind. If the music that can be found on Sonic Youth’s proper albums may be described in the above unfriendly terms, can you then imagine what songs originally left off these albums by Sonic Youth themselves must sound like? Well, there’s no need to wonder anymore because we have The Destroyed Room, a collection of b-sides, outtakes and rarities from the Sonic Youth tape vault. Certainly, any Sonic Youth completist would lap this up immediately, but this review is not written from that perspective. Instead, we look at The Destroyed Room from the point of view of an indie rock fan who certainly likes his rock music on the cutting edge, but with enough melodies and attitude to keep things cool. On that count, The Destroyed Room fails miserably. Apart from “Razor Blade,” “Blink” and “The Diamond Sea,” all the other eight tracks are instrumental numbers...and long ones at that. We’re not even talking about catchy, melodic instrumental numbers to begin with; mostly a bunch of atonal, unstructured, improvisational ‘dicking’ around. That said, the 25-minute version of “The Diamond Sea” arriving at the end of the album is probably worth the price of admission with its Neil Young vibe and slacker rock tone. That’s the deal with Sonic Youth; a redeeming feature that always seems to keep the entire perspective on an even keel. Go figure.
~ Kevin Mathews
Release date: December 12, 2006
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